RICHARD ORD: Fancy face cream? Pull the udder one ...

As chat up lines go, gazing into a woman’s eyes and telling her she has skin as smooth as a cow’s udder has to be up there with, well, the worst.

That said, it’s been a while since I have had to employ a chat up line. Since before I was married, obviously. So that must be, ooh, about 79 years ago.

Married years should be calculated like dog years – every one year is the equivalent of seven. At least that’s what it feels like.

Marriage and dog analogies probably don’t end there, but for the sake of my marriage I’ll draw the line.

(After 79 years of marriage, I know how important it is to balance any potential criticism with an almost immediate compliment to either balance the books or earn a brownie point).

I mention the skin as smooth as udders, only because of a product I found while rummaging about in my wife’s cosmetic cupboard. Yes, cupboard.

My wife has an entire cupboard devoted to cosmetics. Each shelf contains potions, creams and various beauty contraptions to keep her looking beautiful (brownie point).

As a man, I have a cosmetic cup. It contains a toothbrush and a razor.

In my pre-Christmas desperation to come up with a gift for my wife, I found myself up to my elbows in her cosmetic cupboard looking for clues. It’s when I came across MooGoo.

This is a moisturiser for women based on an old Australian farm product used to keep cow’s udders in tip top milking condition.

What I loved about it, was the fact that they had embraced the product’s history, rather than try to bury it under a pile of advertising guff.

We live in a world where we soft-soap everything. We rarely call anything by its proper name.

Toilet rolls! Rolls of paper for toilets. No. They’re rolls of paper for backsides. It should be called bum paper. Or worse.

A bit of honesty can go a long way.

Though I’m not sure whether this should stretch to chat up lines.

Perhaps the modern single man has to think out of the box when complimenting a potential partner.

After all, we’ve pretty much used up all the classics of days gone by. ‘Grab your coat you’ve pulled’ … ‘I didn’t know angels could fly so low’ or my personal favourite ‘Please go out with me, go on, please, pretty please, I can pay!’

With the advent of face cream designed for smoothing out a cow’s udders, perhaps it will be the accepted norm in the future to chat up a woman by complimenting her on having a face like a heifer’s undercarriage.

I wouldn’t risk it now though. Men’s cosmetics may be in their infancy, but if you want your cheeks reddened without using rouge, telling a woman she’s got a face like an udder is the quickest way … courtesy of a slap round the chops.